ROMA (BENELUX) CONTINUES TO GROW

ROMA Benelux has been big in the news in 2021 because of the substantial renovation and expansion of their Zevenbergen facility. Z&R reported extensively on this in September. That expansion is a manifestation of the unprecedented growth ROMA is also experiencing in the Benelux. "And we are not finished yet," says Toon van Osta, who predicts that 2022 will be another eventful year for ROMA, and thus for ROMA Benelux. 

'We shall go on,' sang Ramses Shaffy in the mid-1970s. It seems to be ROMA's life motto. The ROMA train thunders on and on, Van Osta observes. "Even if it is not a goal in itself for ROMA, the company keeps growing. And that every year and not with little, but with decent growth rates." ROMA Benelux is also expected to continue to grow solidly. "We do that every year," is Van Osta's sober observation. 

New line of cabinets

ROMA has a high-quality delivery program. Based on that strong foundation, improvements are constantly being made. In 2022, ROMA will again bring quite a lot of new products, such as a whole new line of cabinets for roller shutters and exterior blinds in a roller shutter box. "As far as our outdoor blinds program is concerned, we are complete and leading for the Benelux market," says Van Osta. "ROMA achieves mega growth here every year. Not only in the Benelux, by the way." 

Of the new cabinet line, the Quadro 170 and 190 are already available. All other sizes and versions will follow during 2022. To be clear, the cabinet name reflects the dimensions: 170 is 170 mm and so on. "We had been planning this for some time," says Van Osta, "but due to a huge increase in demand, it was necessarily postponed." 

Furthermore, ROMA intends to further strengthen its position in the field of screens, continues Toon van Osta. "We want to attract this market even more to us with quality, innovations, new products and last but not least with a completely new production, which will make our delivery times even shorter. That while we are of course already mega-fast with two, maximum three weeks delivery time. Fast delivery is great for the end customer, who gets his product very quickly, but also for the sun protection specialist, because short delivery times are of course a strong sales argument." 

'We are not perfect'

ROMA also maintains those fast delivery times during the season. "Although we couldn't meet this for a while in 2021 due to huge demand," Van Osta observes. 'We're not perfect,' ROMA founder and owner Ronald Thoma tends to say. 'As long as we are better than everyone else!' For that matter, Thoma does continually put everything in place to approach perfection, notes Toon van Osta. 

He predicts en passant that ROMA's zipSCREEN.2 will gain even more ground. "This screen continues to improve due to new innovations. For now, we prefer improving the zipSCREEN.2 to launching a zipSCREEN.3. One of the innovations in 2022 will be a zipSCREEN.2 Somfy IO Solar, to respond to the increasing demand for solar solutions. The zipSCREEN.2 Somfy IO Solar will be shown for the first time at Polyclose. 

ROMA Benelux will also continue to promote the F50 with its 50 mm wide torque guide and easy mounting on glass curtain walls. After all, due to global warming, the need for cooling by solar shading continues to grow, especially where larger glass facades are concerned. The F50 is seen as a perfect solution for this. 

A final area of focus is built-in. "In the area of installation, ROMA is already a household name," Van Osta observes. "That will remain so, is the prediction, and therefore we are going to achieve the most growth with this segment in the coming years." 

Visiting Burgau

Van Osta concludes by announcing that ROMA Benelux intends to plan a large number of visits with its customers to ROMA's factory in Burgau in 2022. "First of all, because the pandemic prevented us from celebrating ROMA's 40th anniversary in 2020. But also to show all the new construction and the new 9,000-square-meter park realized in the last year. We will continue..."